


meaning nothing

by kangeiko



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: M/M, my early fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-06-03
Updated: 2003-06-03
Packaged: 2017-10-09 19:31:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/90758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kangeiko/pseuds/kangeiko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sirius and Severus share a kinship that is not easy to define.</p>
            </blockquote>





	meaning nothing

That you have no family left matters not to me, for I have none of my own. That you have no honour, no love, no future in your miserable, tortured existence does not concern me as _you_ do not concern me. There is no emotion in my heart for you save _this_, what is here now, in this moment. There is nothing about you that attracts me. You are wholly unlovely, with your too-large nose and too-deep eyes and unwashed hair. There is nothing good or noble in your face; if there ever was, it is no longer there and I cannot trust myself to remember it. There is nothing of beauty left in you save the gritting of your teeth and the arching of your back and the thrust of your hips, and perhaps that is all that truly matters to me now for I feel as empty as you look.

There is nothing graceful left in these, your long, elegant hands, scarred and crushed and mutilated beyond recognition, for the Lord does not forgive easily. There is no untouched, unbroken part to your broad expanse of back, for the Lord's servants do not forgive their hurts at all. There is no elegance to this, to _us_, to this furious, angry, desperate coupling, deep inside these four walls where none may trespass. It passed away with the first bite, the first scratch, the first obscenity half-stifled on the floor. No, you are truly unlovely as you curse me for this, for each touch I bestow upon your shattered form. There is not even the memory of beauty in you; you are known for a servant of Darkness purely by your appearance, and isn't that the right choice to make? For do you not still creep into the Dark Lord's bower and sacrifice yourself on the pyre of our dreams?

You, my hated enemy, my childhood rival, you have lingered here, not alive yet not truly dead, preserved through sheer willpower and venom. You lingered here as a scar lingers, always fading yet never disappearing from the fabric of the earth. I have no doubt that when better, wiser, kinder, nobler men than you have long died, you will continue to linger here, locked safe inside this safe-made prison where none save I have dared to breach your defences. A ghost yet not dead, will you teach still the next generation of heroes when your hair is white and your skin is dry as sandpaper? Will you still remain as safe and inviolate here as violated and broken you are when outside in the real world?

That you never leave these walls by choice does not matter to me. I care not for your sacrifices, for I have made many myself. I care not that you do not love this act, nor me, nor this school nor these children. I care not that your heart is as black as your eyes and your ever-black hair. I care not that your poison still lingers in the air, that your teeth are sharp and scar my back and shoulders, for I have many scars and I am immune to these lesser kinds of poison you call words. It matters not to me that you taunt and torment he who is in my care or that you loathe he who is the other half of me and is my dearest friend, for your malice poisons you as surely as it wounds them. Your hurts and your wounds matter not to me.

Yet you, my foe, my nemesis... You will still remain here when I, like nobler, kinder men, have spilled my lifeblood on the ground answering the call. Your bower walls will close around as tightly as I grip your throat, and you will not cry out then, nay, as you remain silent now, your teeth grit in pain. Will you leave your precious sanctuary then, my dearest enemy? Would you venture out to view my body, swinging down from the marble arch, the dark flag of Our Lord of Darkness flying clear from the highest point of the Bloody Tower? Would you touch the dry blood on my chest and arms and neck and feel it crumble in your hands? Or would you flee back here, sickened at the fate you must inevitably share with me? Would you choose cowardice and deem your duty to the Light done; a lifetime of servitude to two masters, neither caring if you live or die save for your occasional usefulness? Or would you consent to have your body hung next to mine; a warning to those who would make a stand?

That this keeps you awake at night matters not to me, for it is on my mind also and you have no words of comfort. Like the snake you purport yourself to be, you do not lick anyone's wounds, but devour them whole, distending your body into a mockery of humanity if need be. I have seen you, deep in the night, his white-blond hair sweeping across your back, a silver-headed cane leaned against the bed watching you accept this unwelcome visitor and smiling, always smiling at this violation. Why do you welcome him into your bed? Why does filth like that retain the veneer of loveliness long ago denied to you? Does not _that_ irk you, at least a little bit? That he should whisper endearments in a language you do not care to understand, or that his offspring should look at you in that same salacious way, eyes licking up your torso as if you were available to one such as him. As if his father – his refined, elegant, painfully beautiful father – would allow his son to lay with someone as unlovely as you. As if anyone would allow such an abomination to occur.

Does this not trouble you? I hurt you more than the others can or will; this is true, and I care not for your whimpers, be they of pain or of pleasure. I care not for you or for your kin or for your cause or for your tortured past, for I have one such as yours. Do you understand me? Lying here, your legs tight around me, the column of your unlovely, too-pale throat exposed to my teeth and my venom and my everlasting anger, you offer yourself to me unconditionally, uncaringly, and always, always silently, save for the venom your lips spew forth in the place of words of love. This is not love here; I understand this well – I always understood, unlovely, precious, broken one – nor is it hate, nor even comfort. There are no bonds between us, not even those of circumstance or coincidence. I care not for you, and your heart is hardened to all. Why should your death matter to me? Why should it trouble me that you lay with _him_, him, with his white hair and white face and white lips, ever-cold and ever-present as scar tissue lurking beneath almost-healed skin? Why should I be broken by your hands, thin and long and curved into claws, talons dragging into me? Why should I choose this fate?

The Light around me fades, as it is wont to do, and the Darkness is not forgiving. It does not welcome those it cannot turn to its purpose. You serve two masters; I have served none, and my heart aches with the loss. Your words are cold and unlovely, my foe, my enemy, in their truth and their helplessness. You cannot save me, and you cannot save them; those helpless, trusting children. And Our Lord of Light consumes us as surely as the Darkness would; each child, eyes wide, taken into service. What are we to do in response? Our Lord of Light understands our pain and seeks not to enslave us, but enslaved they remain, while I... I, my foe, walk from these lands unfettered by bonds to any man or woman. What am I to do now?

Your hands are too cold, my foe. Your breath is too heavy with venom and disquiet. Your eyes are dark even when closed; your teeth sharp even when grit in pain.

You are wholly unlovely, and in this I delight. In your hands I shudder my release; across your back I carve my supplication for the Light. It is in your mouth, full of venom, that I thrust my tongue and that other part of me, for I know that you care not for my pleasure yet will deliver my release as faithfully as I deliver yours. It is in your eyes that I seek my answers for the eyes of Our Lord of Light are bright and deceitful thought I know him to be a true hero. You have no quest, no family, and no bond to me nor to my kin. Yet, embraced, you tell me the truth when you see fit, and remain silent when not. There is no deceit here, in the cold circle of your arms. What use have you of soft words to ease my pain? You care not for my suffering nor for my sacrifices, nor for those I would welcome back into my chamber if they but knew that I walked a free man, a true man, a good man of the Light.

There is no Light in you, Severus, or Darkness either. Grey are we, stood here in the darkness of your dungeons, cast down from the pedestal our heroes still walk upon, yet not welcomed into the fold of Darkness. Grey are we and forgotten, until our deaths may prove us. Who would mourn my passage? Who would mourn yours, my dear foe? Both unlovely, unloved, grey and pale and forgotten, and there is nothing sweeter in this world, for there is nothing in this world but Light and Dark. There is nothing but Light and Dark, and thought we burn, neither burns for us.

*

fin


End file.
